IntroductionIn 1972 an occultation in the Pleiades cluster presented my
first opportunity to see a Lunar grazing occultation. The star was 20
Tauri and predicted to graze
the Northern cusp of the crescent Moon. An ideal situation suitable
for our small telescopes. The Moon in March would also be high in the
sky with Earth Shine. The prediction was published in the 1972 British
Astronomical Association Handbook, so Irequested the
graze details from Gordon Taylor (Computing
Section Director), who also worked at HM Nautical
Almanac Office (HMNAO).

The graze of
20 Tau passed towns and villages south of Oxford. Predictions from the
NAO gave two
columns of figures, one was the mean limb and the other 1-sigma
inside. This we referred to as the "graze track" which was
plotted on an OS map. The aim for a graze observing team was to align
themselves at intervals along a line perpendicular to, and inside the
track (or roughly so). We decided to deploy along the Lower
Icknield Way -
a Roman road close to Chinnor. The Watts
limb profile was also provided and mid-time was about 2005 UT

A group off
four (myself included) from the Maidenhead Astronomy Group assembled
with small refractors, two stopwatches each and I think we must have
had tape recorders. All being well we would get a time for the first
event and a time when we stopped recording and extrapolate timings in
between.

Having set up
near well land-marked positions over a distance of 1000 yards (with
the aid of a 6" to Mile OS) we pondered the question "How are we going to start our watches?"

We had not planned this, and there was no public telephone box to dial
TIM (Speaking clock), so the only option was to knock on a few doors
in the hope of finding a helpful resident. We received a few strange
looks, and then decided on a more "professional approach".
We explained we were about to make some observations of the Moon for
the Nautical Almanac Office. This worked, and we started our
watches on the PIPS - taking careful notes. I don't know the name of
the guy now - but we were most grateful for the use of his telephone.

Surprisingly
we saw no occultation ! Had I made a gross error with
track plotting? No, all seemed OK. We reported this to the NAO, and
Mr L. Morrison wrote a letter
apologising for a large error in the ZC catalogue for this star - which
had been suspected. The error in declination was at least 0.7"
arc, and the path was about a 1 mile to the South of us. However our
spirits were un-dampened - it had been a beautiful clear evening and
I vowed not be thwarted by a lack of time signal in the future. ( I
build a 60KHz MSF radio receiver in 1976)

Xi Sag was magnitude
3.6 and would graze the S Cusp along a track from the Isle of White
to Suffolk. I knew the road down to Petworth very well, so this was
a logical location. The Graze would be at 1747 UT with the Moon 36%
illuminated. I set up close to a lay
by off the A272 identified on the OS map inside the mean limb. The
car is an Austin 1100 - my first car given to me by a work colleague
for £80.

Equipment was:
6" F/8 Alt Az, two stopwatches (rated), one tape recorder
and a medium-wave radio tuned to the 6-o-clock news. Both watches would
be started at the first ingress. One watch was stopped to time the tape
duration, and the other was stopped on the 6pm time signal broadcast.
Replaying the tape several times and timing the replay gave a measure
of the event times and a time correction to apply.

Of interest
is the improvement in our knowledge of the limb. Compare the O-C recorded
on the original report(Actually a copy of the one sent to NAO) with
the O-C when the same timings are reduced with OCCULT4 now. ( see graphics
above)

I teamed up
with Eddie Moore of Reading A.S. to observe
a 6.8 mag star at 79% lunar phase. Eddie hadn't seen a graze so we thought
it was worth a shot since it was not too far away. There was a convenient
Triangulation Point on Marlow Hill in the graze track. It was also Christmas-Eve
and traffic was very light. We stopped at the side of the road and I
jumped the low hedge, passing through Eddie's 80mm Refractor. Conditions
were hazy, but the observation of one ingress was taken. The star was
a bit dim and the O-C suggested the time was taken prior to actual disappearance.
I don't recall how the timing was made. It was all slightly unsatisfactory.
The Irish Coffee after the event was warming.

In 1976 I was
completing my last year at University of Salford as a mature student
studying Chemistry. I joined the Salford
Astronomical Society and used their instruments for occultation
work. I also finished a personell project to build an MSF 60 KHz receiver
with the help of an electronics degree student
Doug Boit who helped tune the circuit. The radio receiver was
used at ZC164 occultation. The prediction was computed by
H. -J. Bode (IOTA). From memory I think I sourced it from the
BAA Lunar Section Director Geoff Amery
who had been in contact with the Mr Bode. Goeff was also a member of
Reading A.S. with a keen interest in occultations.

Epsilon
Psc is magnitude 4.4
with central graze predicted for 0253 30s UT. The Sun's altitude would
be -6.5, so in a pre-dawn twilight sky. The Cusp Angle was also small
at -0.6 degrees at the Southern cusp. From my observing site near a
tree I set up the 6" but failed to find the star in the brightening
sky, however I timed an egress on the dark limb at 0253 16.6s (PE 1.0s
applied). It was a difficult observation and O-C indicates my timing
was LATE.

A few days later
I surveyed the location and found I was 250m NE of a trig point. This
enable me to find the Long and Lat with reasonable certainty. The tree
and Trig Point don't appear on modern imagery on Google Earth, but can
be seen on the 1945 photographs.

Finding
Long / Lat. I used
reference libraries which allowed either photocopy, tracing, or measurement
of large scale maps.The maps provided a grid reference which could be
converted to Long and Lat using a BASIC computer program written for
ZX81 by G.J.Kirby in J. Brit. astron. Assoc 1982, Vol 92 page 198
[with correction in October]. I adjusted the code to run on other systems
(Apple, PC, Cassio).

Observers: G Amery, A Thomas,
E Moore, (D Ferguson+C Wilson), (T Haymes+L Smith+ P Hunt), (J Trott+
R Bradbury), (F Gear+ B Davies), (M Ratcliffe+Goodenough+Topley) ,(C
Morse+D Smith)The
occultation of 50 Cnc was organised by Geoff Amery(
Director, BAA LS) and the Reading AS. A group of Maidenhead
members (inc. myself) took up two positions, one single and one double
occupancy. There were nine positions in all. An Amateur Radio Club provided
secondary standard radio time signals to the stations via some sort
of short-range transmitter of a manually keyed time signal. I dont have
the detail but it worked. I used my own MSF 60 Hz receiver and submitted
9 events, but on re-examination this should have been 10. One time is
missing from the report. (See Limb
Profile from Occult4 ).

The graze was
predicted in the BAAH 1977 (entry no 6), passing NW-SE from N Ireland,
through Wales down to the South Coast near Eastbourne. The Moon was
55% sunlit and it was a Northern limit at roughly 2330UT, cusp angle
3.4 degrees.

With
confidence we can say this was the "Great Aldebaran
graze". The red giant star passed behind the mountain tops on the
Northern limb at 0225UT on a
clear night with the track passing just North of the Great
Glen to Inverness.

I was part
of a team of Scottish observers. My friends Don and Pat Ferguson who
lived at Tadley (not far from me near Reading) were driving 500 miles
to Nairn to prepare for this graze. They kindly transported my 6"
F/8 reflector which I collected on the night of the graze. I traveled
up by overnight coach and met up with the graze team:

A report was written in the Lunar Section Circular 1978-Dec,
and the JOAAldebaran Cine Film ProjectThe equipment consisted of my 6" F8 reflector on Alt-Az
mount, an 80mm refractor mounted along side ( loaned by Peter
Hunt, Bray Nurseries, Berks.) a Kodak Super 8mm Cine camera (also
on lone), tape recorder, MSF 60KHz radio receiver (home made), an amplifier,
and 100ft of 3-core wire to feed the time signal to a second station.

My personal
objective was record the graze on film. No one had attempted this before
and a lot of planning had gone into this adventure. Several films had
already been exposed on bright star disappearances at 18 frames per
second on Ektachrome 160ASA. I knew the cine camera would work. It was
a simple Kodak "instamatic" type unit with a fixed focus lens
which could be attached by the a-focal method.
This used an eyepiece in the draw tube focused at infinity and the camera
(no focus arrangement) would be brought up the eyepiece. The exit
and entrance pupils were a good match. A bracket was made to hold
the cine camera at the eyepiece and there was a jubilee clip arrangement
to hold the run-button down. The length of film was about 3.5 min total
run time.

Logistics
on the night?After discussion it was decided that Dave Gavine would be my
co-observer using the 80mm (3") refractor. He would be the visual
observer at our station. I had a 3" finder on the 6" and I
would adjust the Alt-Az to keep the Moon in view while the cine camera
was running. When Dave announced the first ingress, I would start the
camera. At the same time the tape recorder was recording, and MSF was
bleeping one pulse/sec. A wristwatch would be used to identify minute
markers.

Observing
Locations
This was a bit hap-hazard (if I recall) since there were no sites pre-identified.
However it soon became clear that the Dam
across Lock Clounie was a good site. It
was straight, with a commanding view to the SE, and relatively short
drive away on the A87. When we arrived we had to climb over the low
fencing to get access to the Dam which was illuminated by the silvery
light of the Moon. Myself, Dave Gavine and Dave Taylor carried out stuff
across the Dam wall to a position about 2/3rd the way along. Dave Taylor
was 100ft North of us - the length of the wire we brought to feed the
audible time signal to him.

On the night,
radio reception was poor owing to the mountain to the South, but it
was good enough.

Did
it work?Yes, we got film and tape recordings. The first ingress was
followed by what seemed to be along interval before the egress. This
was a worry at the time, since I was exposing my 3 min of film, and
that-was-that if it ran out. In the event I recorded a deep fade at
0226 41s and eight contacts in all from 0224:20s to 0226:40s so there
was a whole minute of film in reserve. There was no profile available
from C.B.Watts charts so we were in the
dark as far as what to expect. The film was digitised and combined with
the audio tape in this Utube video

ReportingIn the Utube recording, listen out for Dave Gavine and our
near simultaneous voice announcements, and in the background (100ft
away) Dave Taylor calls out events he can see while the star is hidden
from us. The time signal is clear and visual timings were reported to
RGO. (see graphics above). No times were derived
from the film which was used to record fade events. I had originally
thought I could introduce a time signal onto the cine film vis an LED
in the eyepice, but testing this was unsuccessful.

The stations
McNaught, Fodor and Ferguson used different timing methods. From what
I recall at the Ferguson site, Pat made the observations, while Don
was the Recorder - i think using a UT synchronised clock, noting times
to 0.5s.

Rob McNaught's
report
in The Astronomer, and his limb profile sketch
Further Notes
in TA

Positions
I have used the positions in the Occult4 archive and plotted them with
Google Earth. There will be a difference of several minutes of arc between
the OSGB and WGS84 datum (see graphics above) but it gives the general
idea - in fact I didn't know the positions of the other team members
until I wrote this page.

Analysis
Using Occult 4 and displaying the 1978 timings against the modern LRO-LOLA
limb, there is good correspondence.

This was the
first graze track of 1979 in the BAAH. WZ Ceti
(mag 6.7) was grazing the Southern Limit of 64% sunlit Moon at 1917UT.
Planning was done by Anthony Thomas of
Reading AS, and three observers set up to record it: Anthony, Martin
Ratcliffe, and myself. There was
another team observing nearby. (See the observer list). I was on the
Southern limit (with Peter Hunt - 3" Obj) and we recorded just
a pair of contacts on the dark side separated by 37 sec. Sunrise was
on some high lunar peaks and bright side contacts were not seen. Time
keeping was by tape recorder and continuous radio time signal (MSF 60
KHz).

A plot
of all the results was issued by RGO which showed a line of contacts
passing through the mountain. John Mason
in the LSC 1979-05 wrote to say that these seemed to be spurious.

The
Astronomer magazineIn TA issue 1979-02
are two further reports. Mr.J.A.Burger
from Ewell A.S.(team of 6) observed near Horsham using DIZ
radio time signals, and Alan Dowdell (Solant
Astronomers) observing near Gosport (team of 4) who used home made MSF
60KHz receivers and tape recorders.

DIZGermany
This was a continuous time signal at 4525 kHz
based at Nauen. Some of the Europe's talest transmitters were built
here in East Germany.
Some services (time) were discontinued after unification. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauen

A second graze
in1979 was listed the BAAH. A 6.4 mag star (HIP 29326) at the crescent
(21%) Moon with Northern limit. No limb profile was available from Watts.
Once again members from Reading, Newbury and Maidenhead Astro Socs teamed
up. Eight stations were identified along the course of a disused railway
line. The weather turned bad at the last minute with cloud moving over,
but one station was lucky. The Moon was clearly seen through a gap in
the cloud and the writer timed the first DD event at 2039: 37.4s (O-C+0.52) at the -1 Sigma limit.
The time was 2040 UT in the evening with the star at altitude 23 degrees.

This story would
not be complete without the Occult archive. I was not the only observer
submitting a results. Martin Ratcliffe
in the center of the graze path observed 7
contacts. I also see my name is not recorded against my own observation
in Occult - also my height above MSL is incorrect (or not supplied).

Timing was by
audio announcememt on tape recording with continuous radio time signal
(MSF Rugby). PE was applied 0.6s

This was the
first successful graze to be reported to ILOC, who had taken over from
RGO in 1980/1. For some reason I was using a 3" refractor (not
my 6"). The view was quite dim by comparison. A high magnification
was used (x150). I think I had to borrow the telescope and eyepiece
from Don Ferguson because I arrived without any optical equipment. I
was one of six teams from Reading. It was a successful expedition. Anthony
Thomas (Woolhampton School) timed 11 events. I recorded 4
by tape and Radio time signal.

Note: Some
observes reported non-instantanious effects. Where they aware this was
a known double star?

My
mobile 6" had been decommissioned, and the 8" was not available
as a mobile instrument.

From the TA
archives scanned by NASA
Astrophysical Data System E.Strach and team planned to observe but
was thwarted by cloud initially, however some timings were obtained
by E. Strach and E. Jones in good conditions
with an 8" telescope and magnification x166. The timings are OK
in a retrospective reduction
using Occult 4, but there is an offset of 0.2" arc. This could
be caused by an error in the reported location using the Ordinance Survey
(Datum OSGB36). The quality of the timings and attention to detail indicate
a good set of observations.

So
where was the observing site?
The position in the WGS84 datum (GPS / Google Earth) was obtained by
entering the reported Long/Lat in "nearby.org"

Conclusion
The OSGB to WGS84 conversion is correct. The observer position appears
to be in a field off the road which is 4.7 km inside the Northern Graze
Limit and agreeing with the comment made in the report of a long disappearance
followed by a few contacts. A request has been made to LAS concerning
the Late E. Strach's observing log, but nothing has been located.

There was only
one graze predicted for the Southern UK in 1987. This was a 6.5 mag
star after full Moon. Phase was -58% so the star would approach from
the bright side, Northern limit. A friend of mine - Jack
Smith - who was observing occultations for the JAS, had some
predictions obtained from Norman Wright
(JAS Occultation Director). I plotted these and found a car
park on Small Dean Lane off the A4010 near Bradenham.

Now that I had the use of an 8" F/6 reflector
on a Fullerscope EQ mount, it was transportable and useful for
graze observing. On the night of the graze I set up at 4.30 am.BST and
discovered the star was double with approximately equal components in
a roughly N-S orientation. The occultation from this station was of
the Southern component.

Two times for
the South components was taken: No graze phenomena were seen. The star
was hidden for 4min 42s.

The event was
reported in retrospect in 2017, since it was not in the Occult database.
The Occult 4 reporting page was used to send a digital report, and a
reduction was received within a matter of days.

Timing was by
audio announcement on the tape recording with continuous 1pps radio
time signal (MSF Rugby). A quartz analogue clock synced to UT was used
to identify the minute marker. PE was applied 1.0s. I was reading out
BST on the tape for some reason.

J
A Burger of Norwood
Rd, Effigham observed this 6.5 mag star (SAO 146752) graze at the 17%
illuminated Moon (S cusp), using an 8 1/2 inch F6 spec, x125. Details
were reported in TA 1988-06.
A short R-D of 7.8s was recorded on tape with Y3S
time signal. (callsign for DIZ Germany 4523 kHz). This
observation was not recorded in the IOTA database and has been re-submitted
following contact with John.

Conclusion
The WGS84 position is on a cross roads, East side. The short observed
duration is consistant with being 0.5 Km South of the mean Limb shown
in the re-computed profile.
The stated location is "near Heathfield". This is the largest
town about 2 miles to the West.
The mean residual (O-C) for the observation is +/- 0.03" arc which
is well within accepted limits for this epoch.

This was a 7th
mag star close the the Pleiades, grazing the Northern Cusp at 0147 UT.
The Moons Alt/Az was +15 @ 069, phase 22%, so observable. Bert was a
well known enthusiast of graze occultations living in Kent. I was invited
to join the team by the Andrew Elliott
who had observed in Bert's graze teams on other occasions.
I was at position 4.

Observers were:
H.Carpenter, R.Pickard, G.Bond,
T.Haymes, A Thomas, A
Elliott that I knew, and some others.

The MO was to arrive at a meeting point using an address and OS map,
and then leave in convoy, dropping observers off at predetermined locations.
There was a lot of planning involved which included the distribution
of information by Bert to householders in the neighbouhood, and informing
the Police. Some sites were on private land with owner's permission.
My location for this event was in a field
opposite a remote house (or so it seemed at the time). I had 30min
to set up, somewhat less than I would have liked, but this was OK for
visual obs.

The
Instrument was a
8" F/6 Newtonian on Fullerscope Mk III EQ with manual slow motions.
Timing with AudioTape and MSFcontinuous signal. Eyepiece 19mm. A PE
of typically 0.5s was applied.

There was no
lighting and we were asked to sketch the position of our telescope with
reference to nearby land marks (e.g.so-many-yards from: Road/Fence/House
etc). The position of my telescope was revealed by the ILOC reduction.
The organiser deduced the Long/Lat based on his survey and reports received.
Each observer made his way home to analyse the recording later. I sent
these results in the ILOC format to Andrew, who forwarded them to Bert,
who forwarded all results to ILOC in Japan with a copy to Alan
Wells (BAA Lunar Section - occultations)

For this summary
page I was able to pinpoint the remote house on Google Earth using the
OSGB location by conversion of coordinates. At this particular graze
I recorded 14 contacts by the usual method of tape recorder and continuous
radio time signal. However the report says "Clock (adjusted by
standard time signal). The PE was 0.5 sec applied. Fourteen contacts
is my personal best for visual observation. They look very good on the
Occult
Limb plot

Instrument:
20cm F6 Newtonian on Fullerscope Mk-III mount,
undriven. Eyepieces 18mm and 10mm. The magnification used for ZC 562
was x120, recording with a SHARP battery operated tape recorder and
continuous time signal from Rugby 60Kz (Home made reciever). The minute
marker anouncements were provided by quartz analogue clock sychronised
with UT.

The observing
site had been selected so that we could observe both grazes from the
same location.The Moon was 48% at Az 220, alt 55 degrees - favourable
circumstances. On the night however there were showers and a cold wind
that buffeted the telescope. My instrument was set up in the driveway
ofDoyley Manor Farm (MAP).
I recall making one observation in cloud of ZC557, but this was too
uncertain in these conditions. No observations were reported for either
event. (or they had been lost in transit).

Addendum
2017 Oct 4
: I have found the tape recording of these observations ! This
was digitised with Audacity using an *ION TAPE-2-GO tape drive; and
the observations extracted. It confirms that fast moving broken cloud
(gusting wind) spoiled the first graze for ZC557. The second graze was
more successful and 6 contactswere recorded for ZC562 with certainty before a large cloud intervened.
The times were extracted from the voice recording (see above) which
also gave the name and locality of my observing site, for without this,
the observations would have been useless.

With the aid
of the on-line OS maps (https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/51.29180,-1.44084,16)
I was able to find the farm house where the telescope was set up beside
the road in the Farm's driveway. The correct spelling of "Doyley"
was critical. Then with Google Earth I established the exact coordinates
and height. With all the info to hand i have completed a digital report
for submission to IOTA graze collector in Japan, Mr
M. Soma, and Dave Herald in Australia.

A good ending
to the mystery that sarrounded the second graze event. [ Original reports
were lost ].

This was a
great opportunity to observe a double star graze. Gamma Tauri (Mag 3.9)
is well known, however the observing site was not in the graze zone.
This was a Northern limit with the main component being at the mean
line and the other1.5Km inside according to the limb profile.
I was 500m South of the limit. One of the components of the double should
have been occulted but nothing was seen *. The Moon was -61% sunlit.
The graze time was 0040 Hrs UT (* Its possible the eye didnt pick it
up)

I arrived at
about midnight and set up in the large car
park. Some young drivers were using the area to do hand-break-turns,
so I kept a low profile. After they had departed leaving a cloud of
dust, I assembled the 8" F/6. Shortly afterwards the Police
in a Panda Car arrived to check the car park and asked me if was OK
and had i seen anything? I said i had, and the Police gave chase leaving
me to observe. Then another car arrived and parked on the far side of
the car park about 30m away. I could hear a faint beeping sound that
reminded me of a 1 sec pulse!!

When my own
observation was completed I walked over to investigate the faint beepinf
sound, and discovered Martin Burger (Reading
AS) had selected the same car park independently to observe the graze.
He also reported no event. Neither of us submitted formal reports though,
and my original report is lost.

80 Vir was predicted
in the BAAH to be occulted by -61% Moon at Az 178, Alt 30d. The star
is magnitude 5.7. The track was requested from Andrew
Elliott the Lunar Section coordinator and stalwart of Reading
AS. The plotted track passed close to Maidenhead and members of both
Reading and Maidenhead Societies were interested in observing it, however
the time was at 0500UT, a rather unsociable hour. Although I had scouted
out a number of locations at the Berkshire Agricultural College (I spoke
to the Principal) at Burchetts Green (see
map), in the end, only one observer was active and I was located
near the Robin Hood Pub at the N corner of the
Pinkneys Green.

The
Instrument was a
8" F/6 Newtonian on Fullerscope Mk III EQ with manual slow motions.
Timing with AudioTape and MSFcontinuous signal. Eyepiece 19mm. A PE
of 0.5s was applied.

I was using Occult4 to generate
graze data for the BAA. The Google Earth file showed I was within the
graze zone for kappa Aquari. It's very unusual for a home location to
be in such a prime position. The event was successfully recorded at
2355 UT with the Moon near full (95%). Four contacts were timed, the
first DD, the second RB,
then two further bright limb event which
were timed as best I could from the video frames. The reduction shows
a large O-C for both bright limb events indicating difficult conditions
for reliable times.

The Instrument was a driven 30cm F/4 Newtonian
and WAT-120N+ video camera operating at 25fps.

The time insertion
was a one-pulse per second GPS video overlay unit, the GPSBOXSPRITE2.
The video was recorded on digital tape using a Sony DCR-TRV22E in its
AV-in mode. The tape recording could be converted to AVI through a FireWire
Express Card slot. via the import function of MovieMaker. The AVI was
played back one field at a time using TANGRA software.

The kappa Aqr graze was the
first to be recorded with video by this UK observer.

Andrew J. Elliott was
the first British observer to use video to record total and graze occultations.
He used a WATEC 902H (25 fps) and a Mitsubishi time and date generator
(TDG). He recommended i buy the same TDG. This was a quartz crystal
controlled unit that was synchronised manually to an MSF time pulse.
Since there was an inevitable small time difference been the TDG and
UT, this could be compensated by videoing the MSF pulse LED. Andrew's
observation of the Romney Marsh graze with Bert Carpenter (ZC 1216,
1990-April-30 ) and the graze at Shipbourne
both used video with a reported accuracy of 0.2sec. The 1990 grazes
were observed by Andrew with his 25 cm SCT.

On 1989 Aug 17, Andrew teamed up
with IOTA observer Dr Eberhard Bredner
to observe the graze occultation of ZC3177 during a Total Lunar Eclipse.
Four contacts were recorded by video at 0220UT from a location in Worcester,
UK . This was the subject of a presentation by Alex Pratt at
ESOP35

Steve
Ringwood
and four observers recorded 6 contacts
(one reappearance) in difficult conditions of poor seeing (Ant iv),
bright limb(69% ill) and faint star (mag 7.2). One observer had technical
problems and didn't time the event which was at 2135 UT. The cusp angle
was 4.1 degrees.

Members
of LAS selected the event from the BAAH 2014. The instruments were at
home locations in the graze path (S Limit): 12" F/10 ACF, 10"
F/10 SCT, 132mm ED refractor, 120mm ED refractor, and a 200mm F6.3 SCT.
The report was checked by Tim Haymes (BAA Lunar Section) and sent to
Dave Herald for inclusion in the Occult4 database. The reduction was
by the the Global Graze Coordinator Mitsuru Soma
(Jp)

This was a somewhat
unusual event. I was interested in faint stars occulted during this
eclipse. On SkyMapPro 11 one star stood out, not very
bright at mag 9.2. It was close to the Northern Edge of the Umbra. I
searched with Occult-4 and found the star grazing near Midhurst in Sussex.
Benbow Pond was selected because of good access away from the
road, a clear horizon and hard standing. The location was a few hundred
meters inside the mean limb limit with was the possibility of 4 or 6
contacts. There was no site survey and I turned up on the night based
on map info hoping the gate was open. (it was)

The night (early
morning) was clear and the air still but with some atmospheric turbulence.
Some ducks kept me company at 3am in the morning. There was danger of
dew or mist ( temp was +5C) and I rushed the equatorial set up. With
the Barlow in place, the Eclipsed Moon was drifting down. Not the best
polar alignment. I have taken more care since.

The
instrument was a 203mm F/4 LXD55 with 2x Barlow and WAT-910HX at 25
fps, Gain 38dB plus the usual timing and video.

Because of the
dimness of the star I used a frame integration of 0.04s. (25fps) and
higher gain setting. The Moon was at an elevation of 30 degrees. The
DEC drift continued down, but in the end the graze was recorded before
dew formed on the corrector plate. ( I had a dew shield). From the graze
profile it looked as though I would see short blink through a valley.This
didn't happen.

Tim Haymes: Single observer
position with video. UTube
of 81 Tau [A second position was planned for Peter
Hainsworth] 13 contacts

Dr.Eberhard
Riedel (IOTA-ES) released a new version of his graze preparation software
available here. GRAZPREP can be used
to estimate the number of graze contacts at a given position in Long
and Lat. The software was used for this event. Thus the village of South
Leigh was found to be 2.30 Km inside the limb. I used the Church Hall
car park with permission and 12 or more contacts were expected.

Despite
a very poor forecast (100% cloud) I drove for 45 mins to the site. I
was rewarded to see the cloud thinning, so I set up, and 10 min before
the graze, the Moon passed into a clear patch and a recording was obtained
in good conditions. The observation is reported in JBAA 2017 April
(Vol 127, No.2 Page 115).

Tim
Haymes: Single observer
position with video. The event was advertised in my local AS.

This is the
second graze of 2017 optimised with GRAZPREP. The Nature Center car
park (Bray Wick, Maidenhead) was 1600m inside the Northern limit and
10 or 12 contacts were expected. However the most interesting aspect
of this occultation was the double star involved. What would be observed?

This was a morning event running into twilight with the Moon at 30 degrees
elivation and 37% phase. The forecast was for high cloud which can have
some transparency. Care was taken to get polar alignment. I needed a
compass to locate the pole star which was then put close to the polar
finder center. This was good enough and no significant declination shift
resulted. At first the grazing star couldn't be seen in the eyepiece,
but as transparency improved a little and the Moon became essentially
clear of thicker cloud, the video camera picked it up. The seeing was
now better than expected and the instrument recorded a flash and a step
event at a Cusp Angle of 6 degrees.Fourmain contacts were detected, with
4 more from the companion star. See the
light curve